I delved into some papers (and one author's body of work), and they seem quick to slap bizarre ideological interpretations on their results. For example, I hap

I delved into some papers (and one author's body of work), and they seem quick to slap bizarre ideological interpretations on their results. For example, I happily game-ified tedious BS jobs/classes by introducing elements of danger triggered by poor productivity. I thought the work was utterly pointless, and cheered whenever the corporation got hurt. But I needed some twisted motivation to show up and get through the damn day. And feel that my excellence was recorded somewhere. The Kaur/Kramer/Mullainathan paper seemed to only use a barebones "endline survey," with easily-steered responses. Not in-depth interviews led by the subjects, which might've uncovered inconvenient info. (Or did I miss them?) I also looked at economist Greg Clark's work. It's... weird... but at least his work is refreshingly honest about its political underpinnings. In a way others try to hide. And there's some interesting bits if you squint and remove the weirdnesses. For example, workers may take over a factory. But under a market economy, they may reasonably decide to oppress themselves by hiring a manager who sits in an air-conditioned room and is immune to the worsened workplace he develops.